The rise of prices during the war, when such a domestic currency was provided by government in adequate quantities, was really owing, not so much to the circulation having become redundant, as to its having permitted an adequate remuneration to be given to industry. This is a most important consideration, which Mr Taylor has most ably illustrated. The proof that the circulation had not, like the assignats of France, become redundant, is to be found in two things which are decisive of the point: 1. At no period of the war was there any difference between the price of an article when paid in bank notes and when paid in silver. No man ever saw the price of anything five pounds in bank notes, and four pounds ten shillings in silver. _Gold_ bore an enhanced price, because it was required urgently for the operations of the Continental armies. 2. The increase in the paper circulation, considerable as it was, was yet not so great as the parallel and simultaneous increase in our national industry, as measured by our exports, imports, and public expenditure.[21] Prices rose, therefore, and reached, for a time, more than double their level anterior to the contest, not because too much paper had been put in circulation, but because enough had been issued to let the demand for labour keep pace with the enlarged undertakings of the nation. [21] | |Bank Notes in| Exports. | | | |Years.|Circulation--| Official | Imports. | | | | Total. | Value. |Declared Value.| Revenue. | +------+ | | | | | 1797 | £10,542,365 | £28,917,010 | £21,013,956 | £19,852,646 | | 1798 | 13,695,830 | 27,317,087 | 25,122,203 | 30,492,995 | | 1799 | 12,959,800 | 29,556,637 | 24,066,700 | 35,311,018 | | 1813 | 23,120,930 |Records dest- | | 68,302,861 | | | |royed by fire.| | | | 1814 | 24,801,000 | 51,358,398 | 32,622,771 | 70,240,313 | | 1815 | 27,261,651 | 57,420,437 | 31,822,053 | 72,203,142 | --ALISON'S _Europe_, C. 41, §69.